The present invention relates to an apparatus for manufacturing filter cigarettes, and more particularly, to an apparatus for manufacturing filter cigarettes, which has an improved section for supplying filter tips.
Apparatuses for manufacturing filter cigarettes are known. They each comprises a filter-supplying section, a cigarette-supplying section, and a wrapping section.
Apparatuses for manufacturing filter cigarettes are known. They each comprises a filter-supplying section, a cigarette-supplying section, and a wrapping section. The filter-supplying section supplies filter tips sequentially to the wrapping section in the direction at right angles to the axes of the tips. The filter tips have been cut from one longer filter rod, and each will be used to produce two filter of two cigarettes. The cigarette-supplying section supplies pairs of cigarettes, one pair after the other, to the wrapping section in the direction at right angles to the axes of the cigarettes. In the wrapping section, each filter tip is interposed between a pair of cigarettes and aligned with these cigarettes. The tip and cigarettes are wrapped together with tip paper, thereby forming a long cigarette with the filter tip provided at the middle portion. The long cigarette is cut at the middle portion into two filter cigarettes.
In the filter-supplying section, the filter tips must be juxtaposed. Otherwise they cannot be sequentially supplied to the wrapping section. The filter-supplying section has a filter-juxtaposing mechanism comprising drums and a filter guide. The drums are provided in the same number of filter tips cut from one filter rod, and are axially aligned to one another. Each drum has grooves cut in the periphery and extending parallel to the axis of the drum. The drums can rotate in the same direction, but at different speeds, each at a speed slightly lower than that of the preceding drum. The filter tips cut from a filter rod are simultaneously applied to the drums and roll into the grooves of the drums, respectively. As the drums rotate at different speeds, the filter tip received into a groove of each drum is delayed as compared to the tip received into a groove of the preceding drum. The tips are, therefore, removed at different times from the drums at the downstream the transport path of the filter-juxtaposing mechanism. The filter guide arrange the tips, side by side, and transports them to the wrapping section.
The filter-juxtaposing mechanism is disadvantageous in some respects. First, to transport the filter tips, provided by cutting one filter rod, sequentially to the wrapping section, the drums must not only have different diameters, but also rotate around different axes. A complex drive unit is indispensable to rotate the drums. Secondly, the mechanism must have as many drums as the filter tips cut from the same filter rod. This makes the filter-supplying section inevitably large. The grooves can be cut in the periphery of each drum at shorter intervals to reduce the diameter of the drum without decreasing the rate of supplying filter tips. If this is the case, the tips are juxtaposed too closely and cannot be fed to the wrapping section at such long intervals as is desired for the process performed by the wrapping section. To supply tips at these long intervals to the wrapping section, another drums having grooves cut in its periphery at the broad intervals must be provided to transfer the tips from the tip guide to the wrapping section. A mechanism must be further provided to achieve a reliable and smooth transfer of filter tips from the tip guide to the additional grooved drum. This mechanism needs some adjustment to function, and the adjustment costs much labor. In view of this it is desired that the grooves of all drums be cut at the same intervals.
In order to manufacture cigarettes with dual filter tips, the cigarette-manufacturing apparatus must be provided with a device for producing and supplying dual filter tips to the filter-supplying section. The dual filter-producing device is designed to axially align first and second tips of different materials, to connect them, and to wrap them with paper, thus forming a dual filter rod. In the wrapping section, this dual tip is interposed between a pair of cigarettes supplied from the cigarette-supplying section, and is aligned with these cigarettes. The dual tip and cigarettes are wrapped together with tip paper, thereby forming a long cigarette. Obviously, the first and second tips must be wrapped twice with paper in order to produce a long cigarette which will be later cut into two pieces. This renders the manufacture of filter cigarettes complex, and ultimately raise the manufacture cost of filter cigarettes.
Single-piece filter rods, usually plain filter rods, or dual filter rods, each usually consisting of a plain filter tip portion and a charcoal filter tip portion, alternately, are supplied from the filter-producing device to the filter-supplying section on an air stream. Therefore, the number of rods which can be supplied to filter-supplying section per unit time greatly depends on the weight of each rod. In short, the lighter the rod, the more rods. Dual filter rods, each composed of a charcoal tip portion and a plain tip portion, are heavier than plain rods. It follows that dual-filter cigarettes cannot help but be manufactured with a lower efficiency than the plain-filter cigarettes.